Is there a government bond bubble?

Here is a symposium over at The Economist:It is better labeled a bubble in government spending (Viral Acharya)No, there is a shortage of safe assets (Ricardo Caballero)Bond yields are probably appropriately low (Stephen King)Probably not, but approach low-probability risks carefully (Tyler Cowen)Yes, and it's huge (Laurence Kotlikoff)It's possible, but there is not enough evidence to be sure (Paul Seabright)No, growth and deflation concerns have grown sharply (John Makin)Current adjustments will reduce the risk of a repricing shock (Harold James)

I gave some comments on “Global Imbalances and Currency Wars at the ZLB,” by Ricardo J. Caballero, Emmanuel Farhi, and Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas at the conference, “International Monetary Stability: Past, Present and Future”, Hoover Institution, May 5 2016. My comments are here, the paper is here

Joe Gagnon: Misconceptions About Fed’s Bond Buying:
To combat the recession that began in 2007, the Federal Reserve and some other central banks have been buying large amounts of long-term bonds. The novelty of this quantitative easing makes the policy especially prone to popular misconceptions.

For the past month, despite the biggest quarterly bounce back from its lows in Dow Jones history, the market skepticism has not only remained but intensified: JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, SocGen, all have warned that this is a sucker's "bear market" squeeze, not the start of a real rally. Techniclans have been just as vocal in their skepticism, while the smart money has been selling relentlessly (not in its 8 consecutive week - more shortly).

This was written by a Nobel prize winning economist without a trace or sarcasm, irony or humor. It is excerpted, and presented without commentary. From the NYT: Debt Is Good ... the point simply that public debt isn’t as bad as legend has it? Or can government debt actually be a good thing?

In “Bursting Bund Bubble: 2 Charts And Some Lessons From History,” we recapped the sell-off in German government bonds, touching on the severity of the yield spike (with emphasis on Thursday’s intraday move above 77bps), the breakdown in the historical relationship between Bunds and Treasurys/Gilts, and parallels between the rout and the 2003 sell-off in JGBs.